Christmas Season

Dearest Mother,

I received said package on Saturday. I am pretty sure that with the increase of missionaries in the world, that the church is keeping the post office up and running with the amount of mail and packages that are sent out every week for their missionaries. Especially during Christmas time. I wonder how many packages that are sent around Christmas time are for missionaries. It would be an interesting statistic. My guess is probably around half. haha

So I went on exchanges twice this week since we have so many missionaries that we have to exchange with in a 5 week period (well really 3 week since we didn't want to do it the 1st or 2nd week). The first one I left on and I was about 20 mins away from home, just across the river into Alabama in a city called Phenix City. I was actually with a sister who was a sister in my previous Zone. This would be about the 5th time I have been with her since she got on her mission. Super crazy, but it was a lot of fun. She is one of the nicest people you will ever meet, and she is always so uplifting and spiritual that it makes it great to be around her. While I was there, they had a meeting with the missionaries all in their district, and they also had a funeral since on of the missionaries is being "killed" (going home) next week. Turns out one of the Elders knows how to play the bagpipes, so he did and it was one of the coolest things ever. He also showed us how to actually do it. It is a lot harder than it looks, but also at the same time, easier than I thought. Its basically an instrument to be a one man band.. haha One of the other Elder's in his training pretended to be an old man from the south telling his grandkids a story about how to improve their lives. That was pretty funny too, and it was surprisingly still very spiritual. He shared the story "The Room" by Brian Keith Moore about the man who had the dream about a room full of small index card files that detailed his life, and how each and every card was signed by him, the good and the bad. And then Christ came in and signed over everything with His blood, and what that meant for him. I really love that story, and I didn't know what it was called, so it was awesome that I was able to find it so I can have a copy of it to share with people. Y'all should read it. It really is a great inspirational story.

We went later on exchanges with the Sisters in Pine Mountain but this time I stayed in Columbus and Sister Dayton went to Pine Mountain. I really do love going on exchanges so that I can meet all these new sisters that I might not have been able to meet before. There are so many awesome sisters that I get to meet as a Sister Training Leader. I have definitely been blessed in that respect. 

Oh! For Dad! There is a new couple in my ward (yesterday was their first day, and they got married about a week ago) who is in the army, but it turns out that the guy, Brother Nelson, is from Morgan, Utah, and he knows Uncle Mark and all of them super well! Crazy how small the world is. Speaking of this couple, Sister Nelson asked us yesterday what our plans were for Christmas, and we told her we didn't have any, so pretty much we are going to go to their house for Christmas dinner and to Skype home. Don't know exactly the plans yet, we will find out more later, but they are super awesome to let us go there out of the blue like that. Especially since they literally just got married. Crazy life.

Well I have lots I need to go do today so I have to get off now, but know that I love you all!

Love,

 Sister Walker